News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: WW II Aircraft Uncovered in China

Date: August 02, 2001

"Flood Uncovers Downed U.S. Aircraft

BEIJING (AP) - A wrecked World War II-era American warplane has been found in a river in southwest China, and officials are trying to salvage it, a state-run newspaper said Thursday.

The wreckage was discovered after a flood pushed it into shallower waters of the Tuojiang River in Yunnan province, the China Daily reported. The aircraft crashed in March 1943, the newspaper said. Five of its seven-member crew were rescued by local residents, but two died trying to parachute to safety, it said.

News of the discovery comes ahead of a visit to China in October by President Bush. Chinese leaders have previously turned the discovery of a missing U.S. aircraft into a token of friendship.

In 1996, President Jiang Zemin gave then-President Clinton photographs of five dog tags and videotape from the crash site of a U.S. B-24 bomber that disappeared in 1944. China later allowed U.S. forensic experts to visit the crash site and turned over human remains found there to U.S. officials.

The United States sent planes into China during World War II to fight the Japanese, who had invaded much of the country. About 1,000 U.S. planes went down over China during the war, and about 100 remain missing."